6 comments:

Should we be surprised? The political calculus is simple; most people don't know wiretapping effects them in their daily lives. Therefore, they'd rather have the government err on the side of curbing their civil liberties rather than risk being blown up in a plane.

Unfortunately, the Democrats aren't willing to take a stand on this or on Guantanomo or anything relating to the 'war on terror'.

The U.S. National Security Agency asked AT&T Inc. to help it set up a domestic call monitoring site seven months before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, lawyers claimed June 23 in court papers filed in New York federal court.

The allegation is part of a court filing adding AT&T, the nation's largest telephone company, as a defendant in a breach of privacy case filed earlier this month on behalf of Verizon Communications Inc. and BellSouth Corp. customers. The suit alleges that the three carriers, the NSA and President George W. Bush violated the Telecommunications Act of 1934 and the U.S. Constitution, and seeks money damages.(1)

What had long been understood to be protocol in the event that the NSA spied on average Americans was that the agency would black out the identities of those individuals or immediately destroy the information.

But according to people who worked at the NSA as encryption specialists during this time, that's not what happened. On orders from Defense Department officials and President Bush, the agency kept a running list of the names of Americans in its system and made it readily available to a number of senior officials in the Bush administration, these sources said, which in essence meant the NSA was conducting a covert domestic surveillance operation in violation of the law.(2)

Gen. Hayden ran the NSA at the time.

Shorrock further relates that Booz Allen was heavily involved with two particular programs at the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA), called Trailblazer and Pioneer Groundbreaker, and then asserts two statements: that these programs reveal that Booz Allen, and many other contractors, are deeply involved in various secret surveillance programs of which the media and U.S. government have now questioned the legality; and that the apparent (assertion made by Shorrock) unsuccessful nature of the programs reveals a lack of competence by both NSA and Booz Allen.(3)

Pioneer Groundbreaker is the program mentioned in the Bloomberg article. Current DNI McConnell was the Senior Vice President of Booz Allen from 1996-2006. After 9/11, Booz Allen was given some contracts for the TIA program run by Admiral Poindexter. It sure looks like DNI McConnell has a conflict of interest.

Miguel - is it surprising? i guess we shouldnt be surprised - but the whole package (the actual legislation, Bush's threat(s), the rushing of legislation, the timing (aug 07, with blinky at 27%) sure puts this situation as the most craven I've seen for a long, long time.

...that George W. Bush can "demand" that the Congress jump and re-write legislation at his will, vesting in him still greater surveillance power, by warning them, based solely on his say-so, that if they fail to comply with his demands, the next Terrorist attack will be their fault.

Bush himself has been teasing everyone with the really hot prospect of another phony, false-flag, black bag "terrorist attack" in August since May, and sock puppets like Chertoff have enjoyed showing us they're in on the plan, too. So, the question is, having kneeled before the great Bush administration glory hole, did the democrats stop Bush and Cheney from attacking Americans, or will they go ahead and have their summer barbecue anyway?